The Witch with Jana Schmieding

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Beck dol Cast, the questions asked if movies
have women in them? Are all their discussions just boyfriends
and husbands? Do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in
best start changing it with the beck Del Cast. Hello
and welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name's Jamie Loftus.
My name is Caitlin Darante, and welcome back to the

(00:23):
Damn Cast. This is a podcast where we talk about
a lot of things. We talked about representation, uh in movies,
of of women, of marginalized groups. We talk about representation
and how guess what it's usually bad? What do you mean?
I mean, have you seen a movie before? No, I
have managed to never see it. Let's go back to

(00:45):
the beginning. So there are things called movies, and they're
so aggressive. They're so aggressive. What I have to reckon
with every day of my life is the fact that
my favorite thing is movies. I love movies. I went
to school twice about movies and they're bad. They're all

(01:06):
just there's so most of them are just trash. And
I really have to reconcile that the thing that I
love and have made a career out of and have
made my like, is my biggest hobby is just bad
in their life? Has ever liked something good? You know,
such thing as good things? Anyway, so we the show

(01:31):
is called the Bechdel Cast. But if you've been listening
for a while now, you know that the Bechdel Test
is becoming increasingly less important to the show. But that's
what we named it, so that's what we have to
acknowledge that it's there. But anyway, so we use that
as just a jumping off point to initiate a larger
conversation about representation in film and um. The Bechdel Test

(01:58):
is a media test created by queer cartoonist Ellison Becktel,
sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace Test, and it requires that
our version of it, our updated version of it, requires
that we've made alterations. We have not been approval from anyone,
but that is just um, what it's like to be brave. Yeah,
we're our own bosses. Yeah, we're girl bosses. We're girl bosses,

(02:20):
and we make the rules. Yes, girl. Our Becktel test
requires that two people of any marginalized gender UM that
includes women, that includes all trans people, that includes non
binary people, that includes intersex people, UH must speak to

(02:41):
each other about something other than a man assists man
and it doesn't happen a lot. It doesn't happen a lot.
But Jamie, I would like to try it with you
right now. Yeah, let's do it? Okay? Um? Hey Jamie? Yes? Um,
wouldst thou like to live deliciously? You're you're like, quoting

(03:07):
a male goat? Does that count? If you're reading me? Actually,
this is like an a level of the test. We
never explored if two women are okay, So if we're
this is pointless. But if we're like, if we're quoting
like non gendered quotes but they're from a male goat,
does that pass the test? Maybe not? I want to

(03:29):
say it does just because the goat is an icon,
you know what I'm I'm reclaiming the goat is the
protagonist of the film. I was not ready for how
what a goat heavy plot we were in for Here,
I realized that I knew very little. What I thought
I knew about this movie was wrong because I was like,
I did not think this was a talking goat movie.

(03:52):
Spoiler alert. The goat talks, well, the goat becomes a
man or the devil and then talks I think, But
I don't know. I don't I wasn't sure this movie was.
Sometimes I'm just like this movie it was either. I mean,
I think it was like a little bit too smarter,
too stupid for me. Don't know which, don't know which,

(04:12):
I don't know. Let's bring our guest up. We're talking
about the which or it if you? Because there's men
are so annoying when they make movies. They're like, no,
we're not using a W because reasons like so, it's
the guest today. She is a Lakota native comedy writer

(04:38):
host of the Woman of Size podcast. It's Jenna sch Meeting. Hello, Thanks,
happy to be with you today. We're rebranding this is cast.

(05:01):
I was something about seeing that made me furious, like,
there's no way. He went for two v's and then
I verified on the Wikipedia page. I'm like, sure enough
he went for I looked it up as well, and
it said something about a language called a Nokian. Did
you did? I don't know it was it's a witch's language,

(05:24):
of course there. It's just like there, a man goes
to a library one time and all of a sudden,
the movies called the vich You're dislike so true he's
so authentic to the moment um. Yeah wait, let me

(05:45):
there's something about it on Wikipedia about you didn't have
like what seems like a grounded reason. I just thought
it was a very silliest. It just seems like a
very pretentious choice. According to our favorite scholarly journal, Wikipedia,
director Robert Eggers said that he found this spelling in

(06:07):
a Jacobean era pamphlet that was on witchcraft. What is
the Jacobean area the era? Um, I don't know. I
would have to look up. I like, I will jerk
off the loser. Who does know who? The Jacobean there
there was? I I did, like I I did, uh

(06:30):
read all of Robert Eggers is like interviews from around
this movie's release, and he was I do at least
appreciate how he like explains his more pretentious choices as
mostly the answer is I went to the library and um,
yeah it said no W. So I was like, all right,

(06:52):
like he is, he isn't mercifully pretty straightforward and doesn't
give you, like a freshman film school x a nation
right to his weird choices. So I'm like, you know what,
that's more than I expected. I think. He said. Also
something like somebody was asked him, were you going for

(07:13):
a feminist message in the film, and he said, not really,
it just came out. I have the quote here, um
when Yeah, Basically, when asked about this feminist themes in
his movie, he said, quote, in all of my trying

(07:34):
to stand back and be objective about themes, feminism rises
to the top. There's nothing you can do about it.
It's just in your face. End quote. But like, Okay,
I what That's a lot of words, but I don't

(07:54):
know what they're supposed to mean. And I don't know
what he means. I don't pebean by feminism. You know,
it just there. It is. It's it's just in your face.
It's so close you can't even see it, is what
I infer from that statement. Right, Honestly, based on these
weird interviews that I give he gives, I think I

(08:17):
kind of like him because I'm just like, he's just
a weird I don't I don't know. I haven't seen
the Lighthouse. I haven't either. Yeah, I have seen the Lighthouse,
and I really embarrassingly enjoyed it to the extent that
I dressed up as Robert Pattinson's character for Halloween this
past year. People seem to enjoy him like he and

(08:38):
he seems like, you know, it's just maybe just like
a weird guy. I don't know. That quote threw me
for a loop. I was like, truly, there is meaning
here I can't find I cannot find it. Um, I
certainly like him a lot better than the other like
high art, pretentious horror director of the moment right now,
Ari asked her, so, like, oh yeah, well yeah, I

(09:00):
really did think that it was an already aster film.
I'll be honest. When I started watching it, I was like,
oh my god, this is like giving me strong hereditary vibes.
And then I look and I saw I was Eggers,
and I was like, okay, well the other one, yeah,
I mean they both have real fixation on female trauma. Yes,

(09:21):
leaning into the Trauma already asked or needs to like
seek treatment a therapist about his fixation on women's trauma.
I like, I at least like Rob, at least like
in Robert. In this movie, it felt at least plot relevant.
I don't know. Yeah, anyways, so Jenna, what is your
relationship with the which My relationship with this the VICH

(09:48):
is basically, I really like horror as a genre. I
love to be scared. I like to be scared, like
to be creeped out. I don't know why. It's not
something I'm out of, um cinematically, cinematically, but I remember
seeing it a long time ago, like when it came out,

(10:09):
and being like, this is a legitimately kind of creepy movie.
And in thinking about it now, I think that since
it originally came out, there has been this kind of
um resurgence of the Witch as a thing that mostly

(10:30):
in my life, white women have embodied as like a
as a lifestyle and a and a something I don't know,
and I find it to be very problematic as a
native person. Um. So I was like, let me watch
this again and see if it has at least like

(10:51):
origins of that, and it kind of does. Yeah, I've
I truly had no idea what this movie was. I
was just shocked at every turn. So that was your
first time seeing it, Jamie, Right, Yeah, I'm new to
the Vivich verse. I am not new to White Lady,
which is this is something that I've been around, but

(11:14):
the Yeah, no, I'm new to the Eggers extended universe. Yeah,
this is so weird because I grew up not too
far from where this movie happened, and Massachusetts children learn
I think, one of the more warped versions of this

(11:35):
moment in history, and so anytime I come across it,
I have to basically remember to unlearn all the stuff
I learned as a kid, because I just everything I
learned was incredibly wrong. And I even looked up. Um,
I was like, oh right, I wonder if he's like
from New England, and Robert Eggers is absolutely from New England,
grew up going to Plymouth Plantation, the world worst, most

(11:59):
historically inaccurate tourist attraction, and just I was just like, okay,
So I wonder how much he I wonder if he's
made an effort to unlearn these things. And I left
unclear on that topic. Sure, what about your history, Caitlin. Um.
I didn't see it in theaters, although I remember the
buzz around it when it came out, because it came

(12:21):
out five years ago. I remember it being hailed as this,
you know, like, wow, this movie is the creepiest movie
of the decade. It's so scary, it's so good, it's beautiful,
it's haunting. All this stuff, so I was very intrigued
by it, even though horror is probably the genre that
I am least acquainted with. I'm getting I'm getting better

(12:43):
at having seen more horror films, but I don't seek
out horror the same way I do other genres. But
I was still intrigued by it, and I was like, Okay,
I gotta see this. I think I saw it probably
later that year, or like in early sixteen or something,
not long after it came out, and I remember like, yeah,
being like, Wow, that was creepy, that was haunting, that

(13:06):
was mesmerizing, and didn't watch it again until we started
prepping for this episode. And now I feel super I
just have a lot of I don't know what to
make of it, and I'm excited to talk about it. Yeah, yeah,
I'm very I guess I just left very unclear on
what this movie was trying to say. Well, let me

(13:28):
ask you both this what was creepier to you? The
talking devil goat that they kept calling black fellop or
the elderly women woman's naked body. Okay, So I'm so
frustrated that any time, and this is like this new
guard of male horror directors. I feel like and and old.

(13:51):
I was even reminded of like the shining of like
I was going to bring this up using an elderly
woman's naked body for shock value. Is such attired. I
was so bummed to see that trope pop up here
because it's so like ari Astor just did it in Midsummer,
but it's been if there's such a precedent for it
that I just that pissed me off. While I found
the Satan goat to be very funny, by the time

(14:16):
that happened, I was just like, yeah, sure, like cool, yeah,
and what a sexy voice the goat had, I mean,
not a trace of goat? Okay. So I looked up
the actor who plays Black Philip when he once he
turns into the devil man. It's an actor by the

(14:37):
name of Daniel Malick, who is a Pakistani actor who
is first of all, extremely hot. Secondly, the optics of
like a brown Pakistani person playing the devil in your
movie full of white people? Perhaps did you ever see him? Though?

(14:57):
I feel like I didn't see, only see maybe like
it's kind of like a silhouette or just like a
glimpse of his face, nothing to to really be able
to distinguish it. So perhaps my point here isn't super valid,
but I guess if you're being generous, I still am
not sure. But he did have a perfect devil voice.

(15:24):
I was, so I didn't know what to expect of
the voice, and I did not leave disappointed. Yeah, well,
shall we get into the recap and go from there? Yeah?
I also just want to apologize. Apparently there is a
world war happening in my skies right now. So I

(15:45):
hear like helicopter, a lot of helicopter activity outside above
me as well, so that we've been having that. We
just have been telling our listeners, like, listen, we live
in a police state, and yeah, it will happen. Yeah, um, okay,
So it is six hundreds. I think it's sixteen thirty.

(16:09):
Colonial New England, specifically Massachusetts, specifically Planmouts Plantation, although I
don't know if they ever say that in the movie,
they say the Plata Plantation. I think that that might
have been the only one at a time. Got it.
A man and his family are being banished from the plantation.
It's never made clear exactly why, but the idea is

(16:32):
that they are like too Christian. Yeah, they're like too
devout Christians. Were they wrong to say they were too Christian?
They're pretty Christians. They were really intense. They were like
not fucking around with being Calvinists. Yeah, it seems like
it was over some what seemed like a religious dispute

(16:54):
um that is not ever really specified. But my my
interpretation is like this family too devout, go away? Um,
so they do, which is crazy considering in my humble opinion,
when I think back on this time, I think everybody
was like this family, I know, right, I kind of
am curious of like what in a like in a

(17:16):
world that we know the white settlers were so extremely like,
what would constitute like this is the line for us?
This is too Christian? Like I didn't know that that
line existed. Yeah, shrug, who knows. But we meet the family.
The father is William from Game of Thrones. You're like, oh,

(17:38):
it's who from Game of Thrones of Thrones, I truly
don't know. The actor's name is Ralph innosent Inosen another
great voice, great voice, yes, very gravelly deep voice. He's
got his wife, his wife Katherine. She is played by
Kate Dickie, who was also in Game of Thrones. Yeah,
it's like, Okay, we get it. You're casting British. Yeah,

(18:00):
we get it. You want to cast British women who
will breastfeed inappropriately? Yes? Oh god. That was the other
moment that I'm just like, male directors shouldn't be allowed
to make these kinds of visual metaphors. I am oh icky.
They have a teenage daughter, thomasin Thomas sin get it, Sin.

(18:27):
I I really enjoy this actresses work. Anya Taylor Joy
She's fun, she's fun and everything, and I think this
was her first movie. Yeah, I believe so. I feel
like every actor in this movie. Side note, great performances
all around despite the content, very good acting. Even because
it's We're always we always came, we historically come down

(18:51):
too hard on child actors. American ones were the worst. Yeah,
but but the child actors in this, especially like the
kid who plays Caleb, like he held it down, that
that was. And they're talking about like Old English like Iambic,
Pentameter Shakespeare. I mean, this eight year old is possessed

(19:12):
in Old English and like kills, It's very impressive. There
there will be scenes that don't cut away for a while,
so these kids had to learn a lot of dialogue.
At once, and yeah, I was super impressed. So, um,
Thomason is our protagonist. Her brother Caleb is I think

(19:33):
I think he's supposed to be like twelve, although I
truly don't know how old children are said, that's probably wrong,
and he's definitely he's definitely older than eight. You're both
right to me, I would say like eleven, twelve, maybe thirteen,
even he's for sure a child. Then there are two
younger twins who they might be like seven or eight, um,

(19:55):
but also I don't know. And then there's an infant Samuel.
Having been banished, they traveled to the wilderness and set
up like a homestead on the edge of some remote woods. Um.
And one day Thomasin is playing peekaboo with the baby
and suddenly the baby disappears. I like that very quickly,
the word which becomes a verb, like you get witch.

(20:20):
He's witched. He was witched, Samuel was witched. You're like, okay,
because then we see a witch scurrying through the woods
with the baby. Then we see her cutting their like
it's implied that she cuts the baby open and then
like pulverizes it and then smears it's flesh and blood.

(20:42):
All over herself in some sort of like ritualistic sacrifice.
Why because I you know what, I looked it up,
they said back in the Jacobean era. I'm assuming a
favorite era, our favorite era. Who knows apparently that one

(21:06):
of the ways in which witches were able to gain
the power of flight is through a mixture of essentially
like ground down the fat of a baby, plus like
hemlock and like lions, main like all of the old
timey herbs that you can think of, like okay, like

(21:28):
grind them all together and rub them on their body,
and that is what makes a witch fly. Okay. So
like how at the end they're floating, that's because they
had herbs and babies. Yeah, they have that magical posh. Okay, incredible.

(21:50):
That's actually really helpful to know, because I was just like,
why does she want the baby? Yeah? She needed it's fat,
she needed, Okay, so that she needs it the baby ingredient. Great.
So then back home, the family mourns the loss of
the baby. Um Catherine especially is inconsolable, and they all

(22:11):
think he was probably snatched by a wolf. So the
crops that the family are growing are diseased. Um, so
William the father takes Caleb out into the woods to
gather food. Um they try to shoot a rabbit but
are unsuccessful. Their traps come up empty, and William explains

(22:32):
that he traded Catherine's silver cup so that he could
buy the trap. I think, and he tells Caleb to
keep this a secret. Then we meet the most important
character of the film, Black Philip, A goat a vaguely
c G. I'd goat. Oh really, I didn't notice any
c G. I okay, maybe I'm wrong, but I just

(22:56):
there were a few moments where I'm like, oh, post
got to Philip. I did read some trivia that the
actors said. Of all of the animals on set, the
horse was great, the chickens were great, the rabbit was
the most well behaved, but the Black Philip was a

(23:20):
real handful not cooperative. Well. Famously, this method, Yeah, he
was going. He was Daniel day Lewis and he's like,
I'm gonna, of course, I'm gonna terrorize this set. I'm
Black Philip to be Black Philip. Wrestling scene was improvised.
I'm not joking. That's the nerdiest piece of trivia. I

(23:43):
feel like I'll drop off. God. Wow, that's scary. That's
how unruly he was. Black Philip, you little devil. That
makes it even better. So we mean we we mean
black Philip. And the two young twins, Jonas and Mercy,

(24:04):
are chasing him around, and then Mercies like their friends,
they say, he talks to us, he tells us things.
And then Mercy tells Thomason how she has seen a
witch of the woods, and um, it was a witch
who took the baby and Thomason to tease and scare.
Mercy is like, well, I'm the witch. And then that

(24:26):
night Katherine the mother, she's like, oh, I don't know,
something is weird and unnatural. And and Thomason, you stole
my silver cup, didn't you? And she's like, no, I didn't.
And then William and Caleb don't speak up about this.
They don't they let Catherine think that Thomason stole the cup. Oh. Also,

(24:48):
Thomason goes into the barn that night to tend to
the goats, and she sees the same rabbit from the woods,
and we're like, is the rabbit the witch? Like she
take the form of this rabbit. I think that's what's implied.
So then thomasin overhears her mother talking about how Thomasin

(25:09):
should be sent off to serve another family. Basically, I
think to be like married off is what the implication
is here, because they're starting to starve and she would
be one less mouth to feed and not wanting this
to happen. Thomasin and Caleb go into the woods to
find food, but they get separated because the witch rabbit

(25:31):
spooks the horse. And then in the woods Caleb comes
upon the witch's cottage and the witch comes out, only
this time she is younger and her cleavage is present,
or she was him and by kissing him on the

(25:52):
mouth did that need to be shown? That did not?
That was a real scene where a child gets kissed
on the mouth passionately by an adult by an adult woman.
And if you truly, if you're Robert Inger's and you're
like this needs to happen, then like there are so
many ways to show that without it having to happen. Also, throughout,

(26:19):
Caleb is like checking out his sister, like checking out
Thomasin and kind of like feeling shy around her. There's
this weird vibe where he's like curious, right, which is
later weaponized against thomasin by her mother by saying like,

(26:40):
why are you making your brother horny? And she's like,
I wasn't doing anything, poor Thomason this whole movie. She's
just like I'm literally just standing here and they're just like,
you're the devil. I do think that that is when
when I was reading about the movie and reading feminist
critiques or quote unquote feminist critiques that they were that

(27:03):
a lot of them said, yes, this is true to
how the witch trials were presented at the time, that
like young women were seen as like very very demonized
just in general, like you just all you just had
to be mothered in some way. It could be the
the crops sucked or whatever. You you're an unmarried woman

(27:27):
older than the age of sixteen or whatever, and you're
just a witch and joking aside. I mean, it is
like it's especially unfortunate to see her mother being the
one to voice this criticism. But like being blamed for
a man like looking at you is like a thing

(27:49):
that happens constantly, and it's doubly hurtful when another woman
is the one doing the blaming for it. It is
weird how the position of the father and the mother
in terms of the way that they treat Thomasin are
kind of reversed natural, like like, it's to me, it's
unnatural that the mother would not she would not understand

(28:10):
and be like, wow, she must be a little witch,
you know, and the father is like protective of Thomasin.
That doesn't make any fucking sense that the dad is
clearly the witch mongerer and the mom would be like, yeah,
I went through this too when I was sixteen. They
all thought I was a witch too. Yeah right, yeah,
there's I was kind of I went back and forth

(28:32):
on how I felt about that, and again it's just
like I just wasn't really able to tell what the
author was trying to say, and then sort of fell
on like I think that he just kind of like
wasn't there. I mean, he said it himself. He wasn't
thinking about it from a feminist perspective, So some stuff
kind of gets a little garbled, which is a bummle
because I feel like if it had been if it

(28:53):
had been focused a little, or if he had had
a woman look at the script, we could have gotten
a little I have a whole spiel on this that
I'll get to later, but yeah, it's it's muddled to
say the least. Um So, So Caleb is missing, the
family is frantic, but he appears again outside the house.

(29:14):
He's very ill, uh, and then the family is trying
to figure out what to do. Things seem hopeless. He's
not recovering anyway. And then Caleb takes a turn in
which he barfs up an apple and then dies. And
then everyone's like, thomasin you did this to him because
you're a of a vitch and she's like, no, I'm not.

(29:37):
Maybe Mercy and Jonas are the witches. They're the ones
always talking to Black Philip, and the Devil appears as
a goat often, so I don't know, maybe look at them, which, honestly,
when she said that, at first, I was like, all right,
that's a stretch, not knowing that she was urect so

(29:57):
I thought that there was no way. I was just like, oh, okay,
Like Thomason is in a difficult position and she's trying
to be like, where can I deflect this blame so
people will leave me alone? But nope, it the devil
is the goat And she was right, yes, but I
mean I also feel like imagery of the devil, at
least in like pop culture is often to a metal concert,

(30:20):
like you know, there's like the horns and the hoofs
and all that stuff. It just feels it just feels
weird hearing in Old English. I guess I would choose
just like could be the goat, like it'd be it'd
be Black Philip. But she's right, um So, not knowing
who to trust, William locks up Thomas and Mercy and

(30:44):
Jonas and Black Philip in the barn for the night.
And then the old witch flies in because she knows
how to fly now because of the potion that she made,
and she drinks the blood milk from another goat, not
Black Philip. So the next morning, Um William comes out

(31:05):
and the barn has been torn open, mutilated bodies of
the goats are lying around. The twins have disappeared, and
I think, don't show up again in the story. And
then suddenly Black Philip impales William with his horn. It's
a big metaphor. He falls beneath the wood that he
was chopping, and he collapsed underneath his own failure as

(31:28):
a patriarch when he was wearing his like Jesus E
robe chopping the wood in a like, yeah, has his
canvas skirt. He's like, yeah, he's like wearing like a
canvas fit and he's got like his light six pack
and he kind of like, I mean he looked good. Okay,

(31:49):
I'm hetero and I was into it. Name the Thrones's
dad gets shirtless early and I was like, oh, who
is he? Game of sounds again. Oh, I couldn't tell you.
I couldn't tell you the name of a Game of
Thrones character, but I but he is, um, he's definitely
he was on the show. I recognized his voice, not

(32:11):
his face. So maybe he wore a lot of makeup
on the show. I don't know, Maybe he was. I
couldn't tell you one thing that happened on that show,
but I did see every episode, same exact same um. So,
then William is dying and Catherine comes out and she's like, wow, Thomason,

(32:32):
really seems like you killed all of my children and
my husband and that you are a witch. So Catherine
tries to strangle Thompson, but she fights back and ends
up killing her mom, and then she's like, well, my
whole family is dead. Now what do I do. We Also,
we don't see the twins die, but we're like, well
safe to assume, right, yeah, or they've gone off and

(32:55):
done more of Black Phillips bidding somewhere else scarious because
I was like, they were Black Phillip's only friends and
it would be rude of him to kill them. They
were so nice to Black Philip the whole time. They
were singing songs about him constantly. They're making fans art
right and last. But anyway, so Thomason goes to Black

(33:17):
Philip and she's like, hey, any chance you're the devil
and he's like, actually, high, yes, step into my office,
please sign my book, Please follow me on Twitter, and
I'll give you whatever you want. Then she goes into
the woods and joins a coven of witches and they
all start levitating off the ground and she seems really

(33:40):
really happy. Now elated elated, yes, which is another like
there's an echo of I know that this movie comes up,
but I hadn't seen this, and I was like, this
reminds me of the end of Midsummer Oh, very similar,
like everyone's dead and now I can finally smile and
now I'm with my new friends hereditary. It's like, yeah,

(34:05):
I mean, but I guess that that is more of
an Ariaster criticism because both those movies came out after this. Yes,
let's take a quick break and then we'll come right
back to discuss and we're back. So the main thing
for me for this movie is so like like many

(34:27):
horror movies, including several that we have discussed on the podcast,
this is a movie, it feels like to me where
there is a pretty clear feminist reading of it, and
there's also any number of readings of it that are
not so much because on one hand, like you, it's
a movie about a young woman who is accused by

(34:48):
her family of being a witch because they're starving and
their farm isn't yielding crops, so they're blaming her. They're
like using her as a scapegoat. Goat, scapegoat. Hello, Black Philip,
he is with us now. But you know they're just
they're accusing her of like being a wedge and placing

(35:09):
a curse on them, And you know, this accusation isn't fair.
It mirrors the unfair way in which women were treated
during this time period and in the present time. And
I do really appreciate that the movie from moment one
makes it clear to the audience that there is like
it's never a like suspicion of like is Thomas and

(35:30):
a which we know from the first second that she
isn't and that you have like this level of anxiety
of like wanting to protect her because you know that
she truly didn't do anything, which is nice. I feel
like not every movie would lend her that pretty I
feel like it would maybe be more ambiguous, right um.

(35:50):
And then part of this part of these like accusations
that are hurled against her, we already hinted at this,
but like it's that she's going through the natural process
of physically maturing and like quote becoming a woman with boobs,
and that makes her extra suspicious in the eyes of
her family and society. And like the fact that she

(36:12):
doesn't want to be sold off to some other family
like a piece of property also makes her seem et witch,
right what a b bitch? This vivid sacrifice your life
for the starving family, right um? And then also you
know the end where she like her becoming a witch

(36:35):
could be seen as like her becoming empowered and independent
and having her own agency and autonomy, and she joins
a coven of other women and you know, in that
way I see the feminist read. However, I feel like
this message in the movie would be way more effective
if there weren't also, like quote, real witches in the

(36:58):
story who are evil, scary baby snatching murderers, because like,
I don't know, just like to me, it sends a
conflicting message of like, oh see how women were accused
of being witches for no reason, and doesn't that suck anyway?
Which is are real and some women are witches and

(37:19):
they've made a pact with the devil and they will
murder your whole family for no reason. I had a
similar thought. I thought, and multiple and I mean I
I did not get to the point where I'm like,
and here's a rework of the movie that would have
worked better for me, But I did like at some
point in the movie, I'm like, I feel like this
would be an even more anxiety inducing movie if witches

(37:42):
don't exist, not yet, and things keep happening and they
keep being blamed on people like I feel like it
is almost a weird narrative crutch for which is to
be real? Does that like there's a movie, there's a
movie in there where that doesn't need to be there,
and I feel like they're at the beginning. It says

(38:02):
like the ve Vich like an American. They use the
word folk tale as the subtitle, and I feel like
Robert Egger's really leans on that to get away with
some story stuff or like not fully explore stuff, because
he's like, well, they're based on folk tales, and folk
tales were very biased and they don't actually make a

(38:23):
lot of sense, and so I was just kind of
doing that and it's like, well, or don't, like, yeah,
I feel like the scarier choice to me is to
lean into how extreme these settlers really were at this time,
like so terrifying. They're super religious. They are religious to

(38:44):
the point that they will invent the devil in anything
that is mothered, and they're terrified of this land. They
don't know how to manage it. They're like tripping balls
on like fungus that's growing on their corn, which I
read as a criticism or something that Eggers actually puts

(39:04):
in the film. It's like apparently in one of the
first shots of the corn field, you can see a
fungus growing on the corn, and it's like, at this time,
this was like a popular thing that used to happen.
They couldn't manage the fungus that would grow in their corner,
and it would make them hallucinate. It would give them
the illusion of having possession or like hearing voices and

(39:27):
ship I didn't realize that that should have been more clear,
and then like, and then you wouldn't have needed the
wit I mean, is there. I was also trying to
figure out, like, is there a plausible reading of this
movie where you're like the witches were being hallucinated? But
I don't know, I, well, it's so witch heavy. I

(39:48):
don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I truly feel like
a better version of this story that I would be
able to latch more onto from, just from a feminist perspective,
is if which is, we're not actually real the paranoia
around witches and witchcraft. Sure that could have been real
because that fear of witchcraft was historically accurate, and that

(40:11):
fear could have been heightened by the religious zealotry of
this family. Like that all makes sense to me, especially
in this specific era when a ton of people were
afraid of the idea of which is like, they didn't
they didn't understand science, so they thought if you were
sick or if you had a mental illness, like they
thought you were being cursed by a witch or or

(40:33):
possessed by the devil. Like it's all of their misunderstandings
of everything that would lead them to this, this fear
that makes them become violent and kill each other. Like,
to me, that's a more intriguing story if them being
uncompromising religious fanatics leads to their demise and not actual

(40:56):
like witches. So I had no idea that Jenna, I
didn't realize that he like, he puts the fungus in
front of you, so he clearly has done his homework
and knows it exists, So then why not right to that?
That is so I feel like that is like a
way scarier movie to me than like to Jump scares

(41:17):
that are that are like rabbit based, right, And then
I'm like and then I'm like, the witch is a
symbol for what I don't know. That's sort of what
the Lighthouse is about, where it's these two people who
are in isolation together and they are just like slowly
driven mad because of the isolation. But what I mean,

(41:41):
what I did feel like this movie did well. This
movie did some things well for me and then other things.
I was like I couldn't couldn't make heads or tails
of it, but I did like how clear it was made,
and like how authentic it felt in story that it
was like their own religion and was setting them up

(42:01):
to tear each other apart, and it was setting them
up to not be able to process their own failures.
It was setting them up to be completely unwilling to
process their own grief and like they are so like
set on this really deeply restrictive, sexist, emotionally withholding way

(42:22):
of life that it's like if you isolate those people,
how on earth are they going to survive? Like, of
course they tear each other apart, and they're on drugs.
I guess they're just being poisoned every day by themselves. Yeah,
And I really liked that. Um the establishing shot we
get with thomasin where she is like doing I'm sure

(42:46):
an authentic prayer. It seems like Robert Eggers really did
go to the library. It's all we talked about on
the press tour. Uh. But she she does this like
very specific, deeply self hating prayer that is like I
am bad, I am. And then I did a little
bit of research brag on Calvinism specifically because I was

(43:10):
just like, I didn't is it just like the X
Games of Christianity? And it kind of is, oh, yeah, baby,
give us the deeds? What the hell is Calvinism? So
Calvinism is not just extreme Christianity. And I feel like
once I knew this, it kind of put some of
the talks that especially William, who I feel like is
the most religious lot of everybody. Um. So Calvinism says that, um,

(43:34):
there are a small number of saints who are marked
out for heaven and everyone else is condemned to how
and people who are living have no way of distinguishing
the first group from the second. So no wonder Caleb
is so stressed out all the time about the baby. Yeah,

(43:56):
and it's like, I guess getting baptized increases your answers
of going to heaven, but there's no guarantees. It's a
very Unfit's the least forgiving version of Christianity I've ever
heard of. It's yeah, all humans are born sinners, but
it's just it's like very elite heaven tier and then

(44:18):
like of people go to Hell, And so what's anyone's
incentive to like be a good person while they were alive.
Then according to this religion, you gotta get God to
your baby. I don't like, but it's like that that.
Knowing a little more about Calvinism specifically, I'm like, this
family is fucked like and it's so it is devastating

(44:41):
at the beginning of like, Caleb is so stressed out
about whether his baby brother is in heaven or hell,
and then his dad is just kind of doing some
religious deflection and saying God's plan, God's plan, which is
sometimes what religious people say when they don't know what
to tell you. That I a lot of that in
in my childhood. Uh, they're like, I d like it's

(45:05):
it's just what Christian people say when they can't say,
like I d K my bff Jill, Like they're just
like that. But it also the way it's framed to
Caleb implies that he has to like they're like, and
we're never speaking of this again. Your baby brother never existed,
which is like, that's, oh my god, what a traumatic

(45:26):
thing to to learn as a child who's somewhere between
the ages of eight to old enough to wake up
at the crack of dawn and go hunting with your father, right,
So that's Calvinism, and yeah, Calvinism is um the scariest
Christianity I've heard, I mean, And to just to zoom

(45:47):
out a little bit, like I look at this film
and I'm like, I actually really love films that like
depict the harshness and the rawness of early America. I
also love like films about that, like depict the harshness
and rawness of Renaissance England and like, you know, like
how people actually lived. I find it fascinating, and I
think that I've agreed that I found it so gross

(46:10):
and beautiful um in that way. But to like look
at it historically, to think about, like, even in this
dramatized representation, which I'm sure definitely has some truth and reality,
and like what it was actually like these are like
the foundations of white America, Like this is our past,

(46:30):
and this is these are the people that were like
quote unquote first the first whites. Then you can fucking
still like a lot of those vibes still radiating in
this country. That actually might be the most unsettling aspect

(46:51):
of this horror movie to me, that like this is
the type of people on which like white America was
built like the colonists, the colonize this is who these
people were, and how again they're like their own religious
Zelo Tree was like was their demise and this is
what you know America as we know it today was

(47:13):
built upon. And that is very unsettling. Yeah. Um, I
tried to do a little more research into because I
was like, okay, sixteen thirties. So at this point, the
colonists have been in Massachusetts for about ten years, and

(47:35):
that it's even referenced in story a little bit because
Thomasin and Catherine both mentioned that they're very homesick and
that they had this previous life in England. So it's like, Okay,
Thomason was I think maybe the other kids were born, um,
stay outside, but Thomason was like born in England and
and you know, didn't the whole trip and all this,

(47:57):
and so I was looking up, Okay, what was I mean,
you know, what's going on in Plymouth Plantation is bad,
but the first ten years of colonists in Massachusetts on
Plymouth Plantation is so fucking brutal, Like it is just
some of the most I don't even want to like

(48:18):
repeat it all here, but it it is some of
the most disgusting slices of history that you'll you'll ever
come across, and so this family is coming off of
almost definitely, William was actively participating in a genocide a
few years before this, and so which is not you know,

(48:39):
is very sidestepped in the movie. I feel that like
that this family were full and as as sympathetic as
they can come across. They are full participants in the
colonialist lifestyle, and and apparently they go too hard in
the lifestyle there. There's also it's like almost certainly all

(49:00):
of their friends have died, Like there's just the first
ten years of colonial history is so it's all genocide
and it's starvation and it's just blowing it. Yeah, just
completely not a single good thing happened. But it seems
like a joyless existence. It doesn't surprise me that by
the end, when when Thomason is like floating in the air,

(49:22):
I'm like, yeah, I guess same, Like seems liberating. Whatever
was happening back there sucked, right, And like Jamie you
mentioned that Catherine especially there's a line where she's like,
I wish I was home in England and it's like, well, then,
I mean I guess you move like you colonize this

(49:44):
new place because you thought you'd have a better life.
But um, look how wrong you were. Comma idiot um.
But like, well, the people that came across, we're all
we're ousted from England for their zealotry right well speak
King of the colonizers and the genocide that they were
committing against indigenous people. There are a few references to

(50:10):
native people. And you see him, you see him one time,
you see a few beginning a whole. One time, William
says that he traded with someone named Indian Tom for
the traps. And then when Caleb shows back up at
the house and he's sick and quote possessed, Catherine is

(50:33):
like talking to William and she's like, do you remember
some family's son that first winter? He was tormented of
Indian magic. So they are blaming the native people, who
they are actively committing a genocide against, for having some
kind of dark magic that is plaguing their white children. Yeah,

(50:57):
and that's a that's a themed that persists until about
nineteen seventy five when the Religious Freedom Acts passed in
the United Yeah. Um, depressing facts. Truly. Both hated the
quote unquote magic of the natives at the same time

(51:22):
stealing it, right, so when using it, I mean it's
it's a tragic thing. I think. Like also, like just
this the the savagery, the narrative of savagery also persists
and and was used. Um it's so weird, Like I

(51:42):
don't really understand. I can't imagine. The first of all,
genociding any one is must be very hard, Like it
must actually be so traumatic to do that to a
people who actually we're helping you in the beginning, right
and like teaching you their ways, and to be to

(52:05):
turn around and be like yeah, actually like just gonna
take you out makes me question there their capacity for
love and compassion. I just don't. I wonder where that
comes from. And it's got to come from that religious ship.
I think it is rooted in that, like very I

(52:27):
mean it's rooted in white supremacy. But yes, but a
lot so much of that is contained within this religion
that they're so rooted in of of just like even
like the Calvinist log line is like there's only a
few spots in heaven, so good luck, and like this

(52:48):
chosen one narrative that they've like really lived by, and
I will say that like indigenous people on this land
in North America specifically, but this is true for probably
a lot of Indigenous people who have been colonized by Christianity,
that kind of religious oppression has persisted as well, and

(53:08):
is like largely been used as a like force of
colonization and a force of cultural genocide against those people.
So like, I see like the adherence to like this extreme.
Like I I feel like I look at um the

(53:29):
way that Americans vilify Islam and Muslim people, and I'm like, man,
I just watch the the vich guys. We're we're that
like that is that is? That is like come on,
just all the missionaries that Christians go on to more

(53:50):
or less force their religion onto other people. Yeah, it is.
It's oppression. Yeah, it's just like that core idea that
like how I'm a random person and I believe that
what I am bringing you is surely better than whatever
was here. And we all can see that people before

(54:12):
they came, we were flying around with baby fat on
our bodies. It was so much better. You were thriving.
This is another I think that like I wasn't able
to find a quote of Robert Egger's being asked about

(54:33):
the kind of absence of any Indigenous person from this narrative.
And granted it's this family is very isolated by themselves,
but what I feel like it's bizarre to not contextualize
is why is the area they're living in so extremely
isolated because a genocide took place, and like the there's

(54:55):
not a lot of context given as to why they're
living in a ghost town and what and what was
here before the plantation, Like before they left the plantation.
They're just a day away from the plantation, and so
there's just I don't know, very little to contextualize their

(55:16):
surroundings or really their history in this area at all,
even though we know that they would have been there
for about ten years at this point. Yeah, you can
see that the way the plantation is they have the
like big gates and it's like enclosed. It's like a
gated community, and that was one to keep a barrier

(55:39):
between them and the indigenous people of the time, which
is you know, but there's also within the barrier you
see in this film that like there are natives like
mingling amongst them, trading, like there's so much it's truly
like such an intense clash of cultures happening because is

(56:00):
seen by white people as like uncivilized savagery. I think
even in our modern minds, we have to like really
train ourselves to look at that time and we and
and you know, fuck American cinema and television for like
poisoning us with this understanding. But like we don't really

(56:21):
see early Indigenous Americans as civilized when in fact, there
were extremely like highly coordinated centuries old trade routes and
languages being exchanged, and like you know, materials being exchanged,
like and and exchanges happening with settlers. Like it wasn't

(56:43):
all just like we came and we wiped them out,
Like there was actual collaboration happening also, and like deep
partnership happening because they had to. They would not have
survived if it weren't for the indigenous people. They wouldn't
have been able to do anything. They had no idea
what they were doing. Well. And when William you know,

(57:04):
and his family strike out on their own to try
to yield crops, he can't do it. He can't trap.
He has no idea how to trap animals. He has
no idea how to hunt animals like he can't. He
just has no survival skills. Yeah. I think it was
kind of I mean, irresponsible and just bizarre to me

(57:25):
in such a pretty well researched film to just not
address anything or anyone, Like there's just a lot that
is just left out, and then you're like, the goat
is haunted, let's go. Like to me, I'm just so
used to it. I just I never ever expect that

(57:46):
anybody's going to tell a story about indigenous in a
story about settler colonialism from an indigenous, even mentioning indigenous people.
It's never it never happens, and when it does, it's
done poorly. So actually, I'm kind of okay with him
not having touched that aspect. I don't think that he

(58:06):
would have managed it. Well, oh that's true. No, especially
because like in most horror movies where there is any
mention of indigenous people, it's like, oops, we built our
house on an on a burial ground and now it's haunted. Yeah,
not good. A lot of I b g s flowing

(58:26):
around this this uh entire land, and they're so spooky.
Let's take another quick break and I will come right
back for more discussion. And we're back. Um. I wanted

(58:48):
to kind of jump off of we were talking a
little bit about Williams inability to grow corn Um and Jenny.
You reference this earlier, and I his character, I is
all over the place. I think I generally like where
it went, but I also sometimes when I was feeling

(59:11):
empathy for him, I was just like, what, I feel
like this should be with someone else? Uh? There what
I think I mean? Because he is trying to be
the perfect Calvinist, right, he is super He loves can Calvin.
He loves Calvin. I don't did they worship Calvin? I
don't know, but there he loves Calvin so much, and

(59:35):
he's but he's very like the religious enforcer of the family,
and if anyone is having a crisis of faith, he's like,
get your ship together, while also constantly lying to his family.
Right from the jump, he lies and asks his son
to be complicit in that lie, so he is disingenuous

(59:56):
towards Calvin, let's say. Um. Later, he then takes accountability
for this lie, which I wasn't expecting him to do.
I thought he was just gonna let Thomason take the
falls episode. Now I'm like Okay, he admitted he made
a mistake. Let's see where this goes. And the moment
that I thought was really effective was when he and

(01:00:17):
Thomason are arguing, and this is like a really difficult
scene to watch, but he is like, I think, really
trying to hold it together. He wants to believe Thomasin
more than her mother does, which I agree, Jannah felt
like kind of strange, like a strange choice not to
say that. There isn't like a mother that is so
attached and so and she's like racked with grief and

(01:00:38):
there's a lot going on, um, and she's just shrewman,
probably just straight shrewman this whole time, high on mushrooms
and her children are just dropping like flies, and she's
breastfeeding a crow at one point, like she's having a
hard week. And so like, yeah, a lot of really
piles on to this family in a really short amount

(01:00:59):
of time together. They're having the worst week ever. Uh.
But William does try like he believes Thomasin pretty far
into the movie and doesn't believe that she has a witch.
But the second that she says correctly that he is
mediocre and that he is not able to provide for
the family the way they need. Then he snaps and

(01:01:24):
basically dooms the entire family. And I thought that was
like a really effective story choice of like being the
moral superior until you criticize me, and then I'm going
to kill you, like totally yeah. Yeah. The second she
challenges him, he's like, the devil is in your tongue,
you bitch. He calls her a bitch and then he

(01:01:45):
throws her on the ground. Should have called her of
a bitch um. And then yeah, accuses the devil of
like being inside her and giving her these thoughts and
these words, which is kind of like a fun male
that not funny, it's horrible, but like it is like
a very it is very male of him to me

(01:02:06):
to be like, you're not a witch unless you say
I'm bad at something, and then you must be possessed
by the devil. I mean, it's fragile male ego at
its like peak here. So I thought that that was
pretty effective. I agree, And then like where the yeah,
where the story goes from there is that he's immediately
murdered by black Philip. So maybe, okay, let me re

(01:02:30):
look at this, let me free reframe this story for
a second, what if like black Philip is like rooting
for thomasin this whole time, and he's like slowly getting
rid of the rest of this like scary family of
hers who are like accusing her and manipulating her and

(01:02:51):
stuff and ugly, yeah, like ancestual ogling. And then he's
so he's rooting for the baby. He did take the baby,
but he that was kind of a decision. He needed
his his friend in the woods to find it was.
The baby served a very important purpose in the story.

(01:03:11):
So yeah, what if he's like looking out for Thomason.
And then his whole plan, his master plan was to
be like, yes, come with me. I'll I see how
oppressed you are in this family. I have such a
better life to show you. Here. I've got this group
of women were all hanging out. I'll give you whatever
you want. That I actually I sort of like that.

(01:03:34):
I guess that was like, so, okay, I'm very curious
at how you both read the ending, because I watched
the movie and then I had to go on a
walk and then and then when I got back, I
was like, I think I but I was also maybe
this is a reach. But my read of the end
of the movie was that like, Thomason has been living

(01:03:56):
in this world that is so deeply restrictive, and she
has been like because of what we know about how
you know, any woman who is mothered in any way
is going to be accused of being a witch in
this culture. That like giving herself over to Satan is
more liberating than continuing to live with this in this

(01:04:20):
like deeply restrictive religion, and so like why not why
not Satan? At least there's less rules. They already think
I'm of a bitch, might as well become of a bitch.
I think that that's kind of like a through line
also with the Ariaster stuff. It's like like the scariest
thing is that she actually just becomes one and like

(01:04:40):
really just rejects that the restriction and just goes and
becomes a fucked up, which you know, Yeah, My problem
with that is why does that have to be depicted
as an evil thing? Yes? Why does it have to
be devili Like the devil has nothing to do with that.
It can be completely like I just went to live

(01:05:02):
with a coven of other broads man, this goat went
pog on my fucking family, and I just there's nothing
left here for me except for some roomed up corn.
Let me go live with these the only other humans
that I've seen, these naked old ladies who seem to
be having a good time summer. Yeah, that's my whole

(01:05:25):
thing with this movie. Another reason that I don't think
I don't find the end of the movie to be
a moment of empowerment for Thomason is that like any
agency or power that she does have that she gets
at the very end of the movie is like bestowed
upon her from a man, like the Devil, a devil man. Yeah,

(01:05:47):
I wonder, I always wonder. I'm like, I get the
Devil is I guess, I mean, in this movie certainly gendered.
I think the devil is always I mean there's like
she devil, you hear the expression she devil. But like
I think in like Christian lore, the devil is always
perceived as a man, or like with he him pronounce

(01:06:09):
for sure, right, I need to Yeah that I I agree.
I just wonder if there are you know, different version.
I mean, there's so many versions of the devil, and
I wonder if there is a genderless devil, I mean,
would really clear up some issues here. I think and
I was not raised Christians, so I can't not say

(01:06:32):
for sure, but thank you I was. The devil is
gendered as a male in Christianity and certainly in Calvinism.
Calvin shout out Calvin, Calvin. Calvin, Yeah, loves when men
have power. So this is a male devil. So the
point is like she got her powers from a male figure,

(01:06:56):
and so did We can assume all of those other
women at the end, Um, they got her their powers
from him as well. So to me, they're living, they're
still living in a patriarchal structure like doing a man's
bidding or this, you know, male figures bidding. So Thomasin
basically goes from one like patriarch to another at the end.

(01:07:19):
At least it's not a lateral move at least it's
like the patriarchy. But now you can fly. It is
an upgrade. Yes, yes, yeah, I I hope that she
um doesn't remain in the Devil's employ too long. I
know and heard bad things. It's it usually does not
end well. Um, Yeah, we don't know what happens after

(01:07:40):
she starts floating. Maybe who knows, Maybe the devil is
a really you know, just and kind devil is literally
a socialist, and I feel like, I don't know why
I have a great healthcare that doesn't make sense, but
the Devil wants to defund the police. Yeah, exactly the Devil.

(01:08:03):
I mean, I feel like in in the time, the
Devil was demonized, but actually he had some pretty good ideas.
Oh what makes you think revisionist history anyone? No one
wants to see that movie anyway, So I'm well, too
bad because I'm writing it right now. Um, but you know,
I totally agree with you. She's going from the i

(01:08:26):
mean multiple patriarchal structure. She's she's trapped inside of her family,
she's trapped inside of religion, and then she just kind
of um upgrades to like patriarchy with superpowers. Yeah. The
scene at the end with Thomason joining the coven of
other witches, there's kind of a similar scene in a
very different movie, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, where

(01:08:49):
like it's these rural French women who like help other
women out by, Like it's like, oh, you need an abortion,
come on by the coven. We'll give you an abortion.
Let's sing around the fire, and it's very nice and
not evil and not murdering, like that's how I wish
this movie had ended, Yeah, conflating it with evil, And

(01:09:09):
this is, I mean, a very common choice for this
new wave of white outour horror directors to make. Is like,
and it's frustrating because at least aesthetically, I enjoy these movies,
and I enjoy parts of these movies, but I can
never fully be like, I'm a big fan of this

(01:09:32):
movie because in every single case, and I think Caitlin
and I have talked about this before, of like, there's
a lot of male directors right now who are trying
to write a female character for the first time and
blowing it there. And I think that a very common
mistake that they're making is to conflate women with evil.

(01:09:53):
But they're like, but it's liberating, and you're like that
you still yeah, and and also entirely defining, using like
the last moment of the movie to define a woman
entirely by her trauma, which women are constantly asking male
writers not to do. Um. This bothers me more in

(01:10:14):
ari aster movies than here. But I think that it
is like a very similar thing of like, yeah, she's evil.
It's all kind of the same thing. Well, the Lighthouse,
which is again Robert Egger's other feature at this time.
Having seen both of these movies pretty recently, now, I

(01:10:36):
think that Robert Eggers thinks that women are either which
is or just like kind of evil temperatures is in general,
because in the Lighthouse, there is one woman. She's on
screen for maybe less than a minute. Probably. Uh, she
is a like siren. She's a hallucination succubus type of mermaid. Yeah,

(01:10:58):
she's a She's a figment. She's a figment of Robert
Pattinson's imagination. He definitely does have sex with her in
his imagination's also jerking off to a mermaid figurine at
different points in the film. I just I don't understand
how you could say that when Robert Egger's famously said
in all of my trying to stand back and be

(01:11:20):
objective about feet from it arises to the top, like
he famously said, the most famous thing that has ever
been said about feminism, that makes the most sense. Truly,
I'm so sorry I should be giving him far more credit.
He gets the Accidental Feminist Award. I mean it comes

(01:11:45):
down again to like Robert Egger's to me was like Hey,
you know how a bunch of people, mostly women, were
persecuted during this time and also throughout a large chunk
of recorded history because they were suspected of being witches,
even though this version of witchcraft is not real and

(01:12:06):
was completely invented by the people making these accusations. Well,
my movie is about how those witches are real and
peur evil to verify it. That's why I don't. I mean,
it's like he so he does, he goes to the
library were six times, and he like, I have no

(01:12:29):
doubt that he went to the library, he said it,
But but I don't. I guess that it's like he's
doing this research on folklore from just white settlers of
this time, which he which is reflected in the interviews,
is he was reading early colonial accounts and folklore, and
then he he doesn't subvert anything about like he does

(01:12:54):
show I guess. I guess he goes as far as
showing that the women being accused of witchcraft themselves probably weren't,
which is at first, but then religion made them, which
is like I don't really know. I feel like he
subverts the crucible by making witches actually real, which we

(01:13:17):
didn't need. We don't need that. We need a story
of the Crucible, right, Yeah, I just the the whole.
I just feel like, yeah, he uses one word in
the subtitle of the VICH to just not actually say
that much. That said, I do I do like thomasin.

(01:13:38):
I think that she's like a pretty well written and
well realized character who I was worried for the whole time.
And I like that she does. Like the moments that
she chooses to stand up for herself, which at the
moment she doesn't, felt pretty authentic. And I also like
I felt bad for or Mercy when Thomason bullies her

(01:14:04):
and like chokes her. That was not nice. But I
also like even in that, it's like she I don't know,
I guess maybe being an elder sibling myself, who I
didn't choke Ben, but I wasn't nice to him. But
you know, it's like when your parents are giving you ship.
The only power Thomason has to inflict is on her

(01:14:25):
younger siblings, and so while it's not the best thing
for her to do, it felt like, Okay, yeah, older
siblings do that because that's the only power they have, right.
She's also what like, I don't I don't know exactly
how older character. Yeah, but I would have guessed sixteen. Wait, okay,
so I have the screenplay here, so let me just

(01:14:47):
let me pull that up and see if her age
is actually indicated in the screenplay. So let me just
because my guests would have been, I think that, like
I think Anya Taylor Joy was sixteen when it was shot.
But yeah, that, oh okay. According to the screenplay, Thomasin
is thirteen. Yeah, I was thinking she was older. I

(01:15:08):
was thinking she was like fifteen, sixteen, I want to
I I guess I appreciate that they don't say an
exact number. I mean, I don't really think that. I
don't know. I would have thought she was supposed to
be older, right, I guess it wouldn't make a huge difference.
The implication is that she, I guess is you know,
she's just starting to become a woman. So that makes

(01:15:30):
sense because that's like, how old is Caleb supposed to be?
Because I was already said eight, right, Caleb is supposed
to be eleven? Oh damn it. So we so close, Jamie,
so close. Um. So that brings me to wanting to
talk a little bit more about something we already touched

(01:15:50):
on a little bit, which is just the idea of
women's bodies in the the vich like the women and
so part of this discussion is Thomason maturing physically and
then being shamed for it when people notice that her
brother is always leering at her because he's also nearing

(01:16:11):
puberty if he's eleven. So, like, there's a line where
her mother says something like, you bewitched thy brother, proud slut.
Did you not think I saw thy sluttish looks to him,
bewitching his eye as any whore. Thompson's minding her own business,
doing her chores, and her brother is, you know, creepily

(01:16:32):
leering at her, and then her mom is like, you're
a slut. Yeah, I mean, and I don't even for me.
That's not so much a critique of the movie as
it is of like, this is very true to this
time and also this religion which I found out. I
was like, whoms is Calvin? Truly he was. He's a

(01:16:56):
guy named John Calvin, oh, a Protestant reformer in the
steenth century. So it's just, I mean, all these regressive
views I was basically joking, but actually came from a
man whose last name is Calvin and Calvin, so you know,
um Calvin is canceled. Yeah, yeah, I don't mean to

(01:17:16):
imply that I think that like that this isn't a
critique of the movie. This, Yeah, this is very historically
accurate and this still this idea of like shaming and
blaming women just for having bodies is very present today
and to me, like that's the horror or that's one
of the sources of horror for this movie. Like you
don't also need to put these quote real witches in

(01:17:39):
your movie when your character has a puritanical mother who
hates you because you're developing breasts, Like like just heightening
that would be would have been a more effective approach
to the horror movie than, you know, just to have
some random which pop up every so often. So the
other thing, and we already touched on this as well,
but the idea of like the various forms in which

(01:18:01):
we see the vivitch. We've got the like kind of
the older which form, We've got the young, which form,
and then we've got the rabbit form, which is a
an Actually I looked it up. The hair does have
witchy representations in old in early Americas, which more didn't

(01:18:25):
realize that, well, he went to a library, and you
think there were also things for like frogs. I mean,
I don't know. People were just shreaming so hard back.
They're just like, oh, there's an animal, probably a demon
lives inside of it. It's trying to kill me, to
kill me. But um, so just to kind of repeat

(01:18:47):
the idea of there is a horror trope that is
quite present in many horror films, the idea of seeing
an image of an older woman skin a hack, not
super thin, not western beauty standards, gorgeous, as being a
part of the horror imagery of the film. And Jamie,

(01:19:08):
you brought up the Shining. This exact same thing happens
in that movie too, where it's like there's that scene
where you know, Jack Torrence is drawn to room whatever
it is two thirty seven or if that's wrong, please
slide in never religion. But he starts because he's drawn
in by this conventionally attractive woman lures him in. They

(01:19:30):
start making out because she's naked, and that's what you
do when you see a hot woman, and um, then
suddenly she is older. She's the you know, the hag trope,
and that's part of the horror like, oh, how it's
disgusting now terrifying, it's just shorthand for evil, Like it's

(01:19:51):
the least sexual naked image in movies. I feel like
it's like the bodies of older women are the least
sexual like nude images, and hor be terrified of it.
I don't know about you, both, but I am really
looking forward to having a body that looks like that. Um,
it sounds it seems great. I just got the the

(01:20:13):
the amount of trouble male filmmakers will go through to
make women terrified of what would be a very lucky
thing to arrive at, to get to live for a
long time and have a body like but they don't
like it, they don't want to have sex with it,
so it's scary. I feel like it's on par with

(01:20:36):
like the sci fi vagina mouth monster with the most annoying,
like blatantly anti feminist tropes that if you ask a
male filmmaker about it doesn't look like a vagina to me,
and you're like, sir, it's that's the thing in the
lighthouse to where the mermaid who he imagines, uh and

(01:20:59):
then has sex with. There's like this, and maybe I'm
misremembering this, but I'm pretty sure this is what happens,
where he like looks down and she has like the
mermaid succubus lady has like an enormous volva, like the
size of a dinner plate. Like it's like forty Like

(01:21:21):
can you not do this? Truly? Couldn't your hang up
man deal with this by yourself? I don't know. By
the way, um. The actor who plays the vitch Beth
Sheba Garnette, she was born in nine, so in this
movie she's like ninety and that yeah, good for her.

(01:21:43):
If only she had been like framed and used respectfully
in the movie. Imagine that being too much to ask.
I mean, I think about this often because I am
also a performer, But I just I dread the casting
notice that is asking for or my naked old body,
the older, the better, the saggy, or the better in

(01:22:06):
the same way that I um am privy to um
fat casting notices that are really extremely offensive because we
can't cast fat women as um anything but the fat
woman that's the defining character is stick of their character

(01:22:26):
and that's all we ever know about them. Oh good grief, Well,
does anyone have any other thoughts? On the film The Witch.
I guess I just wanted to talk about Catherine really quick.
We haven't talked about her that Oh sure, much she
apologizes for bringing a shrew to her husband, she does

(01:22:49):
pique his wife behavior. I should not have been a
shrewd to the and it's like, all right, um, I yeah,
I guess that. I don't love that she is painted
to be the more villainous parent. I don't quite like
how she's characterized, but it I do think it's interesting

(01:23:10):
in the same way that like Caleb isn't allowed, like
his religion doesn't permit him the space or permission to
grieve his dead family member, I feel like you do
sort of on top of the fact that she is
a part of a deeply oppressive society and is on drugs.
Um like, she is deeply depressed, and anytime she brings

(01:23:35):
it up to anyone around her, they basically tell her
to shut up, and she's like just lost an infant,
and so in that way, I feel for her, But
it's also like a mother being also the visual metaphor
of like the repeated visual metaphor of mother's equals breastfeed

(01:23:57):
Like breastfeeding metaphor I feel like it's is pretty lazy
if nothing else, And you know just the fact that,
I mean, we don't know much about any of these characters,
but we know. What we know about this character is
that she is grieving her son and she hates her daughter.
And why, I mean, I guess you again. Another generous

(01:24:19):
interpretation is that, like, it doesn't seem like Calvinism encourages
women to like each other or to to do anything
but blame each other for the things that are not
their fault. And there are moments where you can tell,
you know, she wants to believe Thomasin. But then but
the second she gets permission to call her a witch,
she's like, I'm going to kill you, and so um,

(01:24:42):
I just I don't like her. I don't have to
like her. But you know what I think is interesting
is this actress who plays her what's her name again,
I'm looking at Kate Dicky. Kate Dickie, who plays Catherine
breastfeeds in the movie and also in Game of Thrones,

(01:25:06):
plays Catherine's sister in Game of Thrones, who is breastfeeding
a like eight year old, yeah, eight year old, like
a very well past breastfeeding age. She has had to
breastfeed in her career. For two major roles, She's had
to breastfeed, which is such a weird type cast. What

(01:25:31):
a horrible situation we're putting people in. That's so annoyed
like her to arguably her two biggest credits, she has
to horror breastfeed. Yeah right, It's like the same thing
of like body horror imagery, like things that are natural,
like a woman's body, aging, breastfeeding, etcetera. Like those things

(01:25:57):
are made to seem scary and unnatural and wrong, And
I just I don't think images like that should ever
be included as a part of like the horrifying imagery
of a horror movie, especially when those things are never
almost never framed in any kind of positive light in media.

(01:26:17):
Either we see nothing in terms of that kind of representation,
or it's there but only in horror movies as a
part of the horror. And I do not like that
at all. Yeah, I don't know. There's I think as
it pertains to women, I I like Thomasin's characterization, and
I don't think that any of the female characters especially

(01:26:38):
are particularly well thought out, especially because the conclusion is
that they're evil. But I guess that's what I'm to saying.
Oh gosh, if nothing else, I like that Thomason survives
until the end. I was really worried that she wouldn't.
I'm glad she does, but I don't like that it's
to be like and she's the witch, and you're like,

(01:27:00):
what are you telling me? Like? What are you telling
me that? I think I think what he might be
trying to say, And maybe I'm like, I don't want
to put words in feminist icon Robert Egger's mouth, but
I feel like he's like, you know, witches are like made,
not born, I think is maybe what that's I think
a generous interpretation of like all this religious oppression made

(01:27:24):
her a witch and it wasn't. But but but that
also um still makes women evil and also doesn't make
a lot of sense. UM. So I am just quickly
looking up the two WHOA, I'm looking up the two
people who played the people to see if they're actually native.

(01:27:49):
I can't tell. One of them was also in Freedom
Writers and was on Top Chef. Anyway, I always look
for that because I am genuinely like pleased when a
director casts actual native people to play natives in movies.

(01:28:11):
It doesn't happen that often. That does not surprise me
and Jenna. You mentioned, um a test that I don't
think we were familiar with, Jamie and I um until
you mentioned it. But would it be the a LA test,
the ISLA tests, ISLA test. Yeah, if I'm reading it
as Iola and it is a media test created by
Ali Nadi. Um, I hope I'm pronouncing that right. And

(01:28:35):
to pass the test, a female character in a piece
of media is an indigenous slash Aboriginal woman who is
a main character, who does not fall in love with
a white man, and who does not end up raped
or murdered at any point in the story. So, um,
the three qualifications. It needs to be stated. It's real

(01:28:59):
bad here for depressing good lord, thank you for letting
us know about that. Um. Yeah, it's relatively new. This
this test is from the first of it's kind, but
it's absolutely necessary because you will be hard pressed to
find a a lead female character in a TV show

(01:29:25):
who doesn't get killed. I mean, not even elite. You
will be found hard pressed to find a lead indigenous character.
I'll just say that. That's the end of my statement. Well,
does that bring us to the other tests that we
should put this film up against. Yes, okay, the Bechtel test.

(01:29:46):
Does it pass? I think it does. Between Thomasin and Catherine,
they talk about a silver cup, they talk about goats.
Between Thomason and Mercy as well, they're talking about chesch.
They're all accusing each other of being witches. That unfortunately
passes the when you say, hey woman, you are a witch. Yeah,

(01:30:12):
I think I think it does. Um, it does pass,
amazing feminist icon Robert Igers. I'm surprised and amazed. Yeah,
I honestly as well. But it does not pass some
of the other tests that we moving forward or going
to put the film up against, such as the it's
you know, it's a bunch of white religious extremists colonizers

(01:30:37):
and yes, so it's really not going to pass most
of the tests. Very least they're not made out to
look good, right, which is I think the most you
can say. Well, that brings us to our nipple scale,
in which we um examine how well the movie fares

(01:30:58):
when it comes when it's put through an intersectional feminist
lens as a five nipples, my brain is like rupturing.
I guess I would give it like a two on
the grounds that well, that's probably too generous. I do
like Thomason as a character, and I do see a

(01:31:19):
version of the story in which she is empowered by
the end and like has autonomy and has escaped the
fundamentalism of her oppressive family. And you know, I guess
is gonna thrive as a witch, probably in the coven
of the other witches. Um, But we don't know that,

(01:31:41):
I guess, are we assuming have been through the exact
same thing? Right? Is it just like other like farms
like spread out like every few miles, there's just another
daughter who's like being oppressed by their Calvinist family and
they have to escape this life and they all just
converge in the forest. May Yeah, I guess so. But yeah,

(01:32:04):
my big issue with this is, um, the being accused
of being a witch and then having that happened in
the same story in which evil witches who have made
a pact with the devil are real and you're probably
going to become one. Um feeling around long enough and
just yeah, that whole thing, So maybe I'll go down

(01:32:26):
to now I'll stay with it too. I'll be decisive
for once in my life, which is still a failing grade,
so I feel fine about that. It's less than so uh,
and I'll give both of them to Black Philip. Obviously,
both of my nipples go to Black Philip, which is weirdly.

(01:32:47):
I know that we it's the title of the character,
but I cannot help but find racial undertones in the name.
It's for sure, especially because like the two goats that
were per quickly, well behaved and not possessed by the
devil were white, and that is an actual real thing
in witchcraft, the idea of white magic versus black magic

(01:33:11):
is does have racial origins. Yes, did you read that
at the library, Robert, I'm pull in my library hard.
I'm being a little hard on him. He doesn't say
it that much, but it just made me laugh that
He's like, well, folks, I went to the library. I'm
going to give this movie one nipple. I I think

(01:33:33):
that it is partially stemming from frustration that it features
so many tropes that are used against female characters so often,
especially in contemporary horror. But it also I think the
response to it at the time was like feminist, which
I don't think is true. And I just I really

(01:33:57):
I know that horror it's a horror movie. There's going
to be a lot of trauma, but I think that
there are better ways to depict female trauma than is
done in this movie. I like Thomas and a lot.
I hope the best for her in her next chapter. UM,
and I don't. I don't want it. Uh, we don't
need it. But but she I do like. I feel

(01:34:20):
like she makes the movie for me, and like the
anxiety I felt wanting to protect her. I feel like
is what held the movie together for me. And also
just seeing, like, in a very brutally depicted way, the
delusion that comes with extreme religious settings and how it

(01:34:41):
can turn you against people that you love, and like
it can just completely tear your life apart. I thought
like that point was well made, and I think maybe
that was more the point he was trying to make.
But inside of that point he's trying to make. I
feel like his female characters get a little lost in
a little muddled so to quote a scholar, In all

(01:35:03):
of my trying to stand back and be objective about themes,
feminism rises to the top. It's just there in your
face that rises right up. I just like I cannot
subscribe to the mindset that I just feel like it
is so like baby brain to be like levitating woman
last shot. It's feminist, Like I just know, I'm gonna

(01:35:27):
give it one nipple, and I'll give the nipple to Thomason.
I hope she's doing well. Are Robert Eggers which is immortal?
I don't know. I don't know. She might still be around,
could be Jenna, what about you? Um, I'm also gonna
give it one nipple. If I'm really looking at it
authentically through an intersectional lens, Thomason is really only experiencing

(01:35:52):
one oppression, and it's because she's a woman. I guess
there's some religious oppression happening in there too, But intersectionality
is more about um, the oppression that arises from queerness,
from gender, from race, and I think that like there's
literally no other UM. I guess there is some. There
is a lot of ages m in this movie, just

(01:36:15):
like we just hate old people, specifically old women. I
don't love that. I really think we can there's a
better way to scare people. I feel like there's a
better If we're going to move toward horror that is
actually psychologically terrifying, we need to lean into the get

(01:36:36):
out versions of these things, and this was this had
opportunities to really make a critique about early religious settlements
and how fucked up they were. Um, but it then
it just was magical in the end um, instead of
like confronting the reality, the non magical reality of just

(01:37:03):
straight up tripping balls hyper Christianity. Right, you know what,
I'm gonna bring my score down to one nipple. No,
I do this all the time. I let other people
influence me. But hey, isn't that how we grow? Isn't
that how we become better people? To listen and to

(01:37:29):
flect back onto ourselves five minutes ago? Oh my god.
That like any time I write in a diary and
I'll like go back to three days earlier and just
to see what I was like, Oh, I hate myself
three days ago. I was such an idiot. So this
is very much my personality. It's good. It allows growth. Yea, yeah,

(01:37:51):
I didn't even really thought of it. Yeah, it's like
every every complicated discussion that this movie could have had,
it just says magic instead. Yeah, specifically like black dark magic,
like dartmagic, with very in my opinion, clear racial undertones.
Racial undertones for sure. Yes, Um, well there you have

(01:38:15):
it folks, the Witch, sorry, the Vivich, Jenna. Thank you
so much for being here. This has been amazing. Thanks
for having me. Of course. Of course, where can people
follow you online? Check out your stuff anything, whatever you'd
like to plug? Oh my gosh, um Well, I have
a podcast called Woman of Size. It's about life in

(01:38:35):
the intersections of race, gender and fatness. It's about wait
stigma and it's also funny. It's great. But that is
at Woman of Size pot on Instagram and Twitter. I
also have a personal Instagram Twitter that's Janna Unplugged. And
I hope that everybody will watch the TV show Rutherford

(01:38:59):
Falls coming out on the Peacock Network. I wrote on
the show and it's the first show that is has
native lead comedic characters. That's awesome. So I'm really excited
about that. Hell yeah, if you can check out us
on the social media as well, Twitter, Instagram, at Bechtel Cast.

(01:39:21):
We've got our Patreon ak Matreon. It's five dollars a month.
It gets you two Bonnets episodes every single month, plus
access to our entire back catalog. Also, if anyone wants
that Robert Egger's quote on a T shirt, I'm very tempted.
So I just need one one listener to want it
and that will be enough for me to follow through.

(01:39:42):
We gotta there. I have a list of of of
like T shirt. Well, now it's time we gotta make
you know, deeply unemployed and and locked in my home?
So sure, can I just scrawl the words of Robert Duggers?
Yes I can. Well, if you do want our existing
merch and any upcoming new merch, go to t public
dot com slash the beectel cast for all of your

(01:40:05):
merchandising needs and otherwise, uh, you know, I was going
to try to quote this movie and I realized I
don't know a goddamn thing they're ever saying, because it's
like seventeenth century English, So never mind lived deliciously, deliciously, deliciously. Also,

(01:40:25):
any time that someone started one more, one more Robert
Egger's Dunk before we go, anytime someone was like, wow,
the dialogue sounds so authentic and he's like, well I
went to the library. You're like, shut up, stop, he's
a library boy, library baby. Also, sorry, one last thing,

(01:40:46):
the Black Phillip the Devil and when he becomes am
a man, a devil man He's like, what would you like.
I'll give you a pretty dress, because you know, women
be shopping. Women be loving dresses, even zero dollars in
the middle of the woods. Women be shopping truly. Um, alright,
that'll that'll do it. Thanks for listening, We'll we'll see

(01:41:09):
you next week. I

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